


satisfied

by SummerFrost



Series: call me son (one more time) [9]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: :D?, Dysfunctional Relationships, Gardens & Gardening, M/M, Past Infidelity, Power Imbalance, Zimbits but not in a fun way so I'm not putting it in the relationship tags, it's gotten real comfy in hell but I mean just in case, just saying up front okay you were warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 10:25:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13164972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SummerFrost/pseuds/SummerFrost
Summary: There are mites in the garden. Bitty books a flight to Vegas.





	satisfied

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all know the drill. 
> 
> All my love to the #hellsquad, blithelybonny and Verbyna, who enabled and then beta'd.
> 
> Guess where the title is from! (Hamilton).

“Are you just gonna lay there?” Bitty snaps. He’s braced over Jack, arms starting to tremble with the effort every time he thrusts.

“That’s my job, isn’t it?” Jack blinks up at him, eyes owlish and flat. “To let you take care of me.”

 

~*~

 

Bitty books a plane ticket that night.

 

~*~

 

“The mites are winning,” he says, shoving another rumpled shirt into his suitcase. He’ll get it dry cleaned in Vegas. “You need to spray them while I’m gone.”

“What?” Jack asks. He’s on his phone. He used to hate his phone.

Bitty wants to rip it away from him. He wants to plaster his face all over it—the lock screen, the home screen. He wants to see if Jack would put it down when he got it back.

“The mites,” Bitty repeats. “On the roses.”

Jack doesn’t look up. “I thought we had aphids.”

“No.” Ladybugs eat aphids. Bitty puts on a face mask and kills all the mites himself.

Jack hums but doesn’t answer.

“Just—” Bitty sighs. He stuffs two more pairs of underwear in next to his jeans and zips up the case. “Just spray them, okay? Please.”

Jack’s face folds in on itself but at least he looks up from his fucking phone. “Why don’t you just pull it out?”

Bitty blinks. “What?”

“The bush,” Jack says. Like that was the part that was confusing. “Just pull it out.”

It feels like there should be something to clutch to Bitty’s chest. All he has is air and the scars on his hands. “No! Why would I?”

“It’s dying.” Jack is speaking slowly, frustrated, like he knows the words are too blunt and using less of them will help. “Get a new one.”

Bitty’s nostrils flare. “I’m not—I won’t just give  _ up  _ on it! Just spray the fucking bush, Jack, is that really that hard—”

“Fine,” Jack says. Then, “You’ll miss your flight.”

He hasn’t asked where Bitty’s going. It’s on the credit card statement, though.

Like breadcrumbs.  _ For you, for you.  _ Bitty drives his own car to the airport and leaves it there, wondering if it will help Jack remember he’s gone. 

 

~*~

 

Bitty scrolls through Twitter on his phone, eyes flicking up to check the time every few minutes. He didn’t know how to work Parson’s address out of anyone, but the Aces’ practice schedule is easy enough to find online, so he’s at the arena leaning up against a red racing-striped Lamborghini with the endlessly classy license plate,  _ PARSE90. _

It would be easier to feel bad about ambushing Parson if he weren’t so insufferable.

Players finally start leaking out of the building. Most of them don’t even blink at Bitty, which has him working his way up to being offended because he could be a crazy fan or something and how often does Parse have strange men waiting for him at his car, anyway, but then Parson comes outside and scuffs his foot against the pavement in a single misplaced step when he sees Bitty, which is gratifying.

Parse finds his footing. He looks at Bitty, takes a deep, sighing breath, and unlocks the car.

Bitty climbs into the passenger seat while Parse tosses a gear bag in the trunk wordlessly, tapping his fingers on the dashboard. He doesn’t say anything when Parse gets in and pushes to start the engine, or when they swerve around ambling teammates to get on the road.

There were so many things to say, Bitty had thought.

They’ve all dried up and all that comes out is, “Your license plate is stupid,” while the unfamiliar city blurs past.

Parse shifts up a gear as they merge onto a larger road. “Thanks,” he says, and the silence resumes.

The car purrs. It sounds like an animal, something more alive than Bitty feels. There’s pop music playing on the radio, turned down low.

Vegas is garish like Bitty wanted it to be.

“How’s your season going?” he asks eventually, because he’s from the South and five minutes of quiet is a bigger sin than he knows what to do with.

Parson snorts. “You’re not watching?”

Bitty snipes, “I kind of hate seeing your face.”

“Right.” Parse barks out a laugh. “Then why the fuck are you—”

“You can’t stay with him,” Bitty says, halfway through the question, and if he looks at Parse while he says it it’s easier to pretend he doesn’t know who it’s for.

Parse shifts up another gear when the light in front of them turns red, the engine revving gleefully, cars blaring horns and the Lambo veering around them like Parse does on the ice, like things that belong to him are untouchable.

Sometimes when Bitty reaches for Jack he thinks his hand will go clean through.

Parse’s voice sounds far away, muffled by the blood in Bitty’s ears. He’s smirking, though, affectedly careless as he challenges, “You gonna make me?”

_ Do you want me to?  _ Bitty thinks. He looks away.  _ Can I? _

Parse whips into a parking garage and parks at the entrance, tossing his keys to a fucking  _ valet.  _ Of course. Of course.

Bitty scrambles out of the car, smiling apologetically at the valet, and follows Parse inside. There’s nothing he’ll say here, with building staff in the lobby who greet Mr. Parson by name and an elevator that smells bland and a little like a tomb. He could jam the panic button and trap them here. There are probably cameras.

They take the slow ride up to the penthouse. Parse is on his phone, leaning up against the chrome in sweaty UnderArmour and leaving a smear behind.

Bitty thinks about his mother’s careful hands polishing handprint stains off of their brand-new refrigerator. She and his father have always been happy—or close enough to it that he never needed to look at the difference. He wonders what she’d do to keep that, if he’s stronger than her.

If he wants to be. 

The elevator opens and Parse unlocks the front door, dumping his gear bag to the floor carelessly and kicking his shoes off halfway across the foyer.

Bitty toes out of his own shoes like a respectable person and does not stare at the way Parson’s damp shirt clings to his shoulderblades.

“I’m calorie-loading,” Parse calls from the kitchen, hunched over the open fridge, like there’s something to explain, like Bitty doesn’t know what April means.

It’s like second nature to shove Parse out of the way and rifle through the fridge, because with Jack  _ calorie-loading  _ always meant  _ feed me.  _ Someone had to. It’s something to do with his hands, things to curl them around that aren’t the backs of shirts and fists full of hair.

_ Stronger,  _ Bitty thinks, but pride is still a sin.  _ A better sin. _

He pulls out chicken and vegetables, finds breadcrumbs and olive oil in the pantry. Parse slides a plate of something back into the fridge.

Bitty sets everything out and then digs around for the pans he needs, reaching over to preheat the oven along the way, lingering briefly over the sleek controls, and then Parse slides up behind him, hands bracketing him in against the counter with their bodies not quite touching and Bitty doesn’t breathe.

He closes his eyes and thinks about how it used to feel before the wallpaper peeled away. Jack’s lips against his neck,  _ Don’t distract me, Mr. Zimmermann,  _ being in love and thinking it was lucky.

Bitty learned differently. It’s tearing through skin, dirt soaking up the blood. He leans back against Parse’s chest, eyes still closed, the warmth so real it hurts.

He shifts away to rinse off a bushel of carrots in the sink, but he doesn’t have it in him to break the cage of Parse’s arms. When he sets the veggies back down on a cutting board, Parse closes the distance for him, skin back against skin and lips brushing against Bitty’s ear.

“Well?” he murmurs, smug, like he knows.

He can’t. He couldn’t. Wanting hurts and Bitty feels it everywhere, all the time, and there are things that aren’t fair about being a person. He slips a knife into Parse’s hand and says, “Chop.”

Parse huffs out a laugh, sounding almost disappointed. “Sure.”

He chops, though. Bitty moves away from him at last and makes a crust for the chicken and then tenderizes it. Parse doesn’t own a mallet for it, so Bitty uses a pan, and the first hit startles a  _ ‘Jesus!’  _ out of Parse and a piece of carrot that flies off the cutting board and lands somewhere on the floor.

Bitty suppresses a smirk. He gets the chicken in the oven and starts on potatoes before Parse is finished with his carrots, and then Parse slides the cutting board away from himself but keeps the knife and says, “Jesus, just say why you’re fucking  _ here.” _

Bitty finishes stabbing holes into the potatoes and sticks them in the microwave. He does it slowly and it’s still not enough time for anything to make it out of his mouth.

“I’m not here for you to play house with,” Parse tells him.

“You could just  _ leave,”  _ Bitty says, exasperated. “You could—he can’t hold anything over you. What could he do?”

Parse putting down the knife somehow feels more threatening. “Why would I want to?”

He’s shifting closer again, but it’s not the part that makes Bitty’s eyes widen. “What—why would you stay?”

“He wants me,” Parse says, and he has Bitty backed against the counter now, the granite edge digging against Bitty’s hips to keep them from touching Parse instead. “You remember what that feels like.”

“He shouldn’t. It’s—it’s  _ sick,  _ Parse, that he would—” The microwave beeps and Bitty cuts off helplessly, watching the thoughtfulness change on Parse’s face.

Parse braces his hands against the counter, still not touching Bitty anywhere. His voice is soft. “It’s not just about Jack? You actually—you really hate it.”

Bitty closes his eyes briefly. “Let me put it this way,” he says when he opens them. “My husband’s shirt smells like your cologne. And I still can’t stand the thought of that man ever touching you again.”

It’s something about the way Bitty says  _ touch,  _ he thinks, that changes Parse’s face again. His eyes have violence in them, the kind that leaves bruises.

“He doesn’t love you,” Bitty pleads. “He couldn’t.”

“People like us,” Parse murmurs, different again, slithering through ways to make Bitty squirm, his whole core shifting closer until Bitty can swear he feels the blood of Parse’s pulse. Still not touching. “We don’t know what that means.”

Parse smells like sweat but the good kind, musky and powerful. Bitty probably smells like Jack’s money: crisp and impersonal.

“I’m not like you,” he says, but his body is. The way he feels it humming,  _ Mine, mine,  _ and the way Jack said Kenny is hard to say no to.

Parse smiles.

“Jack loves me,” Bitty tries. His tongue trips over the  _ s. _

“You ruined him,” Parse tells him, still smiling, no teeth. “I just helped you.”

“I still love him,” Bitty whispers.

Parse’s eyes should be sad, but Bitty knows better. “I’m sure you think so.”

Bitty’s nostrils flare. “I did  _ everything  _ for him,” he spits. “More than. He needs me.”

“That’s your problem.” Parse traces a thumb across the meaty edge of Bitty’s palm. “Jack doesn’t want anything unless you’re on your knees.”

“So—so what?” Bitty’s skin itches. He still knows what Parse looks like. Hand in hair, mouth stretched open. “I should be more like you?”

Parse blinks. He looks younger, somehow, winded, like Bitty hit him.

Bitty wishes there was a mark on Parse’s cheek to show for it.

“No,” Parse says slowly, too much time later. He reaches up shakily, nowhere to put the hand, and ends up resting it on Bitty’s shoulder. Thumbnail against collarbone. “No, you—someone should worship you.”

Bitty thinks about Parse pushing down, down on Bitty’s shoulder until his legs buckle and his hands are on Parse’s thighs. Knows, suddenly, that he won’t.

_ You’re not hard to say no to,  _ Bitty thinks.  _ You make it easy to take. _

It puts something acidic in his throat.

Bitty turns away, breaking their contact, and pulls the forgotten potatoes out of the microwave.

Parse watches him mash them, watches him toss and wilt the carrots in a pan, pulls the chicken out of the oven for Bitty when the timer goes off and Bitty says  _ thank you  _ with a little brush of their shoulders, like they’re the kind of people who are allowed to touch each other.

They don’t speak. His mouth is tamped down around things knocking at his teeth.

Bitty plates the mountain of food slowly, not sure why he wants it to be pretty and making it that way anyway, and he hands it to Parse with a gentleness he’d forgotten people deserved.

“So do you,” he says, and leaves before he can take it back.

 

~*~

 

Bitty flies back into Providence a week and a half later after waylaying in Chicago for his actual business trip. Jack isn’t home when he gets there, so he abandons his suitcase in the living room and heads out to the backyard to work on the garden before the sun sets, put some dirt back under his nails after scrubbing it all out to talk to donors with polished cuticles.

The rose is choking itself. Thick, mangled stems sprouting in violent red against the healthy growth. It’s so much worse than before Bitty left—he’d thought he had it  _ contained,  _ and now—

Bitty doesn’t really feel it. He thinks there should be something else to it, maybe, but all he manages is to think,  _ Oh,  _ and then:  _ I wonder if it was on purpose. _

He’s still watching the bush like it will start screaming when Jack comes home and puts his hands on Bitty’s hips to tug him backwards against his chest. Something squirms under Bitty’s bones.

“Hey,” Jack says. “How was Chicago?”

Bitty stares through the bush, towards the edge of a thing he thinks he remembers. “It was nice,” he says, and moves away.

~*~

 

Bitty makes a list of things he knows.

One. There are vows you make for other people and ones you carve on your ribs.

Two. Enough mold can kill anything.

Three. People deserve direction. 

 

~*~

 

It occurs to him two weeks later that Parson never apologized for anything.

 

~*~

 

One day Bob Zimmermann will call the house and Bitty won’t be there to screen the call and Jack will miss him, then.

 

~*~

 

Lardo comes by towards the beginning of June with her sketchbook, sitting cross-legged under a tree and drawing Bitty while he works in the garden. She misses art, she says, which might mean that she misses him.

Bitty hasn’t gone anywhere. He’s hewing stems off the same goddamn bush, cutting away infection while the sun pulls sweat out of his skin. Jack is entrenched in a playoff run and won’t be home for three days, if they’re lucky.

“Huh,” Lardo says, scrolling through her phone. “Parse is holding some big press conference in like half an hour. Should we watch?”

Bitty pulls off his glove and wipes at the sweat on his forehead. He looks back at the decaying bush, the rotted edges around the petals. “I think I’m gonna pull it out. Start over.”

Lardo hums. “What’ll you put there instead?”

“A corpse flower,” Bitty says, without humor.

Lardo laughs.

He looks up at her and smiles with all his teeth.

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't found me already, I'm [on Tumblr!](http://yoursummerfrost.tumblr.com)


End file.
